1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to memory management and, more particularly, to prefetching data to a cache in a direct memory access (DMA) mechanism.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a multiprocessor design, a DMA mechanism is to move information from one type of memory to another. The DMA mechanism such as a DMA engine or DMA controller also moves information from a system memory to a local store of a processor. When a DMA command tries to move information from the system memory to the local store of the processor, there is going to be some delay in fetching the information from the system memory to the local store of the processor.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for prefetching data from a system memory to a cache for a direct memory access (DMA) mechanism in a computer system.